In Shards
by Artemis1000
Summary: Before leaving for Scarif, Jyn and Bodhi find a moment to remember Galen Erso, and grieve.


_Notes_ : A treat for Chocolate Box exchange.

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 **In Shards**

"Are you scared?"

Jyn looked up from the kyber pendant she was fiddling with to see Bodhi standing awkwardly in front of the open hatch of the U-Wing, where Jyn had hidden herself to get away from everything and everyone in the temple slash rebel headquarters.

She had thought of going deep into the giant complex, find some place where she could be all by herself and grieve, but if she got caught in a place she had no business being it'd just make the rebels distrust her more.

"Of speaking to the Senate?" She dropped the pendant and propped her elbows up on her knees.

Bodhi didn't reply, he just took her question as the invitation it was and entered the U-Wing. Once he took a seat next to her, he waited in silence.

Jyn bit down on her bottom lip. "I guess." She didn't like admitting it, not even to herself, but if she wasn't terrified of messing up she wouldn't be so scared stepping out of line. She'd never cared before.

They stayed silent for a good long while. The usual noises filtered in from the hangar, it was a beehive of activity even on a normal day. Although the hatch remained open their ship felt like a sanctuary.

"Are you scared?"

Bodhi gave a one-shouldered shrug and said, "I don't have to speak to them."

"You should. This mad quest to save the galaxy, it's yours as much as mine." Jyn blinked, taken aback by the conviction in her own voice. She hadn't really thought about it before, had just blurted out what came to mind, but it felt right. "None of us would be here if it weren't for you, and you're the one…" she had to swallow against the lump suddenly stuck in her throat, "you're the one Dad talked to."

"You were there when he died."

Jyn looked up again, she had heard the same barely suppressed grief in Bodhi's voice that she felt herself. Something stirred in her, both longing and jealousy.

"You knew him well." Better than she did, anyway. Saw Gerrera had been a father to her for most of the time she'd had one at all, while Galen and Lyra Erso stood for the childhood lost on the day the man in white came for them. She only had a child's memories of her parents, and a thousand fanciful what-ifs she'd made up in her weakest moments.

"I knew the man he became in captivity." Bodhi tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. He sat hunched over, but he didn't strike Jyn quite as agitated as he often was, just thoughtful. "He spoke of you sometimes. Not often, though, it hurt him to remember what he'd lost."

"I wish…" Jyn's voice cracked, and she wiped angrily at her eyes with the back of her hand though they remained dry, "I wish he had gotten to speak to me of you, too."

Bodhi had remained still for so long that Jyn thought she'd lost him, when he whispered, "I'd wanted to be there when he died."

Jyn looked at Bodhi, his face drawn and somber, eyes suspiciously wet much like her own, and began to understand that in many ways his grief must run as deep as hers, though he mourned what he had lost, and she what she had never gotten to have.

They were like the two halves of Galen Erso's life.

Jyn wanted to hope they could fit the broken pieces together into a whole, and through this, heal; but there would be no time to try. She had to speak to the senators, and then they would go on a mission there was no coming back from.

A warm hand grasped hers, stunning Jyn into wide-eyed silence which robbed her of all the bristle with which she normally would have responded to being touched.

"There will be time on the way to Scarif. I would like to hear about Lah'mu."

Jyn exhaled slowly. Her fingers closed around Bodhi's. "And I would like to hear about Eadu."

Cassian appeared at the hatch, and cleared his throat to gain their attention. "Jyn. It's time."

She nodded, and released Bodhi's hand. "I still say they should let you speak," she said to him, but Bodhi's pained grin told her that they both knew this wasn't about what either of them thought. They were lucky that the Alliance leadership would listen at all.

Bodhi's quiet, "good luck," lingered with Jyn even when the noise of the hangar and Cassian's dire warnings to remain polite _no matter what_ chased away the peace she had found in the U-Wing.

 _The End_


End file.
